


Said the Spider to the Fly

by TedCaelum



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 21:04:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14197668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TedCaelum/pseuds/TedCaelum
Summary: Sherlockian alternate universe based on the current event in the Shining Live game. John H Masa, biographer and roommate of Tokiyalock Holmes, meets Professor James Renarty. Little does he know that his new friend is more than who he appears to be. Rating may increase in later chapters.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have not written fanfiction for at least ten years, and while I wrote a thesis paper on Sherlock Holmes and have cosplayed from Utapri several times in between now and then, you can totally blame orpheusheart for me finally getting an AO3 account and giving birth to this monstrosity.
> 
> Names (for reference):  
> Ren Jinguji - James Renarty  
> Masato Hijirikawa - John H Masa  
> Tokiya Ichinose - Tokiyalock Holmes (I cannot take this seriously; we will never hear Holmes’ first name in this piece.)   
> Natsuki Shinomiya - Shinomirade  
> Syo Kurusu - Kurustin Ganimard

I remember the first time I met him was on a summer’s day three years ago. That day, like every other summer’s day in London, was cold and miserable. I got out of my shared apartment with Holmes, not surprised by how my roommate was already up and awake at an even less godly hour than I was, knowing that it was more likely that he had stayed up all night again, engrossed with whatever experiments that had caught his fancy that time. The wind was biting cold, and after a few blocks, I severely regretted my decision to not put on some gloves, thinking that I could bear with the cold, if only for the brief walk between the apartment and the hospital where I worked.

It had been a year since I came back from the war, and while I did not miss the bloodshed, sweaty socks, and the deafening sound of artillery fire around me every night, I certainly missed the comforting heat and the generally less depressing weather. I dug into the pockets of my coat for a stick and held it between my lips, while patting myself down for a matchbox that I knew for certain I always kept on me.

“Looking for this?” A voice spoke up from slightly above me. I looked up, and saw a matchbox held out to me. I also saw the man who was holding it.

He was strange to me. Not because he was unattractive, quite the opposite, in fact. But because he was from the Orient, just as I was. Though the East India Company had been doing good work in the Far East, it was still rather uncommon to see that many of us here in London.

I muttered a ‘thanks’ and took the matchbox from him, taking my time to light my cigarette while observing the man before me, the manner my roommate had taught me to do many times before. He was tall, taller than I am, and had a touch of amber to his hair that reminded me of the colour of the sun setting over the horizon on the day I sailed back to England. He was well dressed, expensive without being ostentatious; though the bit of chalk dust on the edge of his sleeves was a telltale sign that he was not like the others of his social class. This man was probably a professor, or at least, was in a profession that required him to write on chalkboards often enough for him to be unbothered by chalk dust on his sleeves. From the back, it would have been easy to mistake him for an English gentleman, if not for the shape of his eyes that betrayed his Oriental heritage.

“…, sir?”

Distracted as I was in my amateur observations, it took me a while to realize that the man I was “observing” had been trying to get my attention.

“-- What?”

The man laughed lightly. I would have taken offence if that laugh had been more deprecating and less… handsome.

“I asked,” the man repeated, still with a hint of amusement shining in his eyes. “If you knew how I could get to Hyde Park from here.”

I looked around us, mentally orientating our location and the shortest route to Hyde Park, and pointed it out to him. He bowed his head slightly in gratitude, and –good gracious!-- winked at me before setting off in the direction that I had given.

It was not until he had disappeared around the street corner that I realised I was still holding on to the matchbox he had loaned me. I looked down at the box in my hand. It was black, with the exception of some letters embossed across it that spelled, “Ren”.

///

My first meeting was quickly put out of my mind for more urgent matters in the following weeks. The summer storms were terrible that year, destroying crops and driving more poor souls out of the countryside and to the city where they had hoped to find better work. As if London was not overcrowded enough as it was, with its smog and its homeless breeding disease and death at every corner.

The hospital where I worked saw its fair share of patients every day, most of them from the middle strata of society who could afford medical care. The aristocracy had their own family doctors, and the poor were, well, too poor to do anything than to pray and hope to survive another day. For them, it would have been a far greater mercy to die than to fall ill.

Our clientele had also ensured that I could resign myself to another day of a seemingly never-ending carousel of common colds, pulled muscles, and if I were lucky, a case or two of feminine hysteria or mild arsenic poisoning, just to add some variance to the monotony. Except that day, our second meeting, turned out to be a little more exciting than the usual.

A horse was spooked outside of the hospital, going rogue as it dashed down the street with its carriage still attached to it. Luckily, the driver managed to gain control of the beast before he or his passenger could be thrown off. Unfortunately, that was not before the horse had run down the little girl selling flowers by the street corner.

As one of the doctors on duty, I was quickly called out to the scene. The girl was barely conscious when I got there, but lucid enough to wrap her grim-crusted fingers around the edge of my coat.

“…no… doctor,” she wheezed. “ain’t got no pennies for ‘em…”

“You need a doctor,” I tried to pry away her grip on me; if only so I could tend to her better. “I can help you.”

Her eyes had watered over with tears from the pain she must be feeling. But her grip remained firm. She shook her head. I mentally battled with myself on the urge to ignore her words and carry her to the hospital, with the full knowledge that neither of us was likely to be able to pay for the fees, and leaving her there to pray that her injuries might not be as severe as they looked.

“I’ll pay,” a voice came from inside the Hansom cab. The passenger knocked twice on the hatch door, signaling the driver to open up so that he could step out. I saw the man who asked me for directions to Hyde Park a few weeks ago. He got out of the vehicle as quickly as he could, kneeling on one knee beside us and removing his cape to wrap the little girl with it. Perhaps it was the warmth from the cape, or the worried frown on his face. The girl removed her hand from my coat to hold the cape closer against her thin body.

The man carefully cradled her against his chest and pressed his lips against her forehead, unbothered by her dirty and unkempt appearance. He was unlike most gentlemen I had seen. Most would have left the scene, believing that the death and injury of a street urchin was not of their concern. Some, might be bothered enough to leave behind a servant with some money to deal with the matter. But not this. Not kneeling on the street in his fine clothes that could easily pay for a few months’ of my salary, or caring for the girl so… humanely.

“I’ll pay,” the man repeated softer this time. “So just rest. I’ll take care of this.”


	2. Chapter 2

I promised myself, when I started my side job as Holmes’s biographer, that I would be honest in my retelling of our adventures. The man had done a great deal of impressive work, and it was a shame that most of his work had gone unappreciated, at least not publicly or even outside of the Scotland Yard. And in this promise to be honest and to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, it had also dawned upon me the gravity and challenge of this job I had taken upon myself. 

There were simply not enough words to describe how utterly condescending my roommate could be. 

“You are doing the ‘frowny’ thing again,” my roommate said, with that tone of exasperation that one would usually reserve when talking to especially thick-headed children. 

I loved the man like a brother; truly I loved him. I loved his intellect and his determination in making sure the job was well done. But sometimes, he needed to remember I did fight in a war, and I did know a few ways to kill a man. Both as a soldier and as a doctor. 

“I am not, as you put in, doing the ‘frowny thing’. Again. Or ever.” 

Holmes sighed, and put down the newspapers he was reading that morning to look at me. I looked back, fighting down the urge to look away until-- 

“Alright, what is it?” I snapped.

My roommate rubbed at the bridge of his nose, as if this conversation was giving him a migraine. 

“You have been coming back late at least three times since last Tuesday, I know this because I do not sleep and nobody bumps their toe at the table every time they walk past it.” 

“You are distracted, smelling like cologne but you never own any, and there’s a hickey on your neck.” 

I slapped my palm over my neck. “I do not!” I really did not, but that did not stop me from hating myself a little bit more for being so easily riled up. 

Holmes raised an eyebrow, his lips curling into a silent ‘ah’. 

“There is chalk dust on your waist though.” He smiled as if the conversation was over, and picked up the papers again, going back to the article he was reading. Something about the theft of a diamond in Paris. “I wonder how it got there.” 

It had been two weeks since the accident outside the hospital. Since then, I had gotten to know the man who introduced himself as “Ren” a little better. The name was obviously Japanese, and when I asked, Ren only rubbed at the bridge of his nose with boyish bashfulness. I was almost embarrassed to admit that the gesture had pleased me, to know that I was not the only one who wanted to keep that sentimental connection with the land that our mothers had come from. Just as how I am “Doctor John” at the hospital and “Masa” to the ones I considered as friends, Ren was “Professor James” to his peers at the university and just “Ren” to me. 

Professor James taught music at the local university. But as a gentleman with some ties to the aristocracy, a professional occupation was merely that, something he occupied his time with. He could have just as easily chosen to waste his time like the other men his age, with hunts in the family’s country estate or other more addictive vices in the less proper establishments in London. Instead, he chose to teach music to others, and more recently, visiting me at the hospital where I worked. 

“Tell me more about the cases you have worked on,” Ren would say as he entered my room, resting his cane against the table as he pulled up the seat across my table. He would cross his knees, taper his fingers over his lap, and smile at me. “I’ve read all your stories,” he admitted. “They fascinate me. But surely, surely there are things that you do not write in them. Tell me more.” His eyes would sparkle with such childlike excitement. I found his attention flattering and if you would forgive me, my dear reader, there were few things more attractive than somebody’s complete attention to your every word. 

In these hours with Ren, I thought I could understand why Holmes sometimes behaved the way he did with the detectives at the Scotland Yard, how he deliberately let slip tidbits of his insights into the crime, just to draw them in like fish with a bait. I often would catch myself doing the same with Ren, telling him about theories that Holmes and I had discussed in the privacy of our shared apartment. 

“This may sound ridiculous, but we suspect that there is an empire of crime in London. We see these petty crimes, but they are just distractions,” I gestured vaguely, trying to find the correct word to express my thoughts. “Smoke and mirrors, to draw our attention away from the bigger picture.” 

I paused. Ren refilled my teacup and slid it across the table towards me. 

“Do you think we are being silly, with our conspiracy theories?” 

“Not at all.” Ren smiled and got out of his seat. He walked around the table to stand behind me, picking up a pen and spinning it between his gloved fingers. “What we see as singular events are, in reality, not as mutually exclusive; each of them weaving its web of lies while being connected to a bigger conspiracy.” He took my hand in his leather-clad ones. I clenched my fingers over the arms of my chair, forcing myself to pay attention to his words, and not the heat of my skin against his, just barely hidden under the thin leather. Or the brush of hot breath against the tips of my ear. Or the tickle of hair against my cheek. Or the combined scent of Earl Grey, chalk, and tobacco that I was starting to find familiar and comforting. 

“You speak of an empire - such a way with words, you have, Masa, really-” Ren chuckled. I was distracted by the shadows his lashes cast on his eyes as he looked down, only letting out a hiss when I felt the slight pain of the pen nib scratching against the back of my hand. I tried to pull back my hand, but Ren held on tight, not letting me as he drew on my skin. “Who do you think is Emperor of this empire you speak of?” 

“Somebody like you, I bet.” 

Ren looked up from his drawing, his expression unreadable. I almost regretted my hurtful words and kicked myself inwardly for giving in to that momentary savage pleasure of retaliating against Ren’s childish schoolboy antics. The two of us looking at each other, my hand awkwardly held in his now loosened grip. A frozen second later, Ren backed away, giving me sufficient space between my table and him to get out of my chair if I had wanted to. 

I did not want to. 

“Perhaps you are right.” 

I wanted to ask what Ren had meant by that when we were interrupted by a knock on the door. Ren turned away from me and retrieved his cane from where he had left it. The door opened a fraction, and behind it was the man I had come to recognise as Ren’s servant. Ren nodded at our interruptor.

“I need to go,” Ren started, the smile back on his face, our earlier tension ignored as if it had never existed. “I am meeting my brother for dinner tonight.” He raised an eyebrow. “Would you like to join us?” 

I shook my head, recognising the invitation as the act of courtesy that it was. “Have a good evening.” 

It was only when the sun had set completely and the room was dark that I realised I had sat there all afternoon, staring in horror at the spider Ren had drawn on the back of my hand.


End file.
